A Desperate Plan
“And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, He said unto His disciples, Ye know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified. Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety, and kill Him. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar among the people.” Matthew 26:1-5
Jesus had just finished the last of His parables and discourses to His disciples. He had previously finished speaking to the multitudes and the Pharisees with His pronouncement of woes upon the self-righteous religious leaders (Chapter 23). The time for the completion of His mission was almost here. I believe Jesus really enjoyed His time with His disciples and the friends He made as He traveled from town to town, healing the sick and demon-possessed, raising the dead, and teaching the truths of His Father’s kingdom. The gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John contain many of the events of Jesus’ ministry while on earth, but the apostle John tells us in John 21:25 that there were so many other things that Jesus did besides the ones we read about in scripture that he supposed the world could not contain the books that could have been written.
Jesus’ disciples would have many memories to fall back on as they began their own ministries. However, the greatest and most memorable, life-impacting event was about to take place in two days. It was an event about which Jesus had told His disciples in order to prepare them for the future, but they did not and could not realize and understand just how significant the upcoming even would be and how it would forever change them. It was God’s plan for Jesus to pay the ultimate sacrifice by crucifixion during the feast of Passover, commemorated as the time when God was going to orchestrate the slaying of the firstborn babies in Egypt in order to force Pharoah to let the Hebrew people leave. In order to save their own babies, the Hebrews had to put the blood of an unblemished lamb upon the side and top door posts of their homes. This blood was a symbol of what was about to take place in two days–Jesus’ blood being shed on the cross.
As Jesus and His disciples left for Bethany, the chief priests, scribes, and elders met together in the palace of the high priest Caiaphas to discuss how they were going to take Jesus and kill Him. Notice that they did not meet in the temple, the usual place for a religious meeting, but rather in the home of the high priest which indicates to me that they were not comfortable discussing their plan to kill Jesus in the temple. Their plan was to take Jesus in a sneaky, crafty way so that it would be accomplished, and they would take no blame. They were very careful to plot their evil deed around the feast of Passover. They didn’t want to be accused of violating the sanctity of a holy day, not to mention the uproar that would be caused by them taking One who had become very popular among the regular folks who revered Jesus as the Messiah or as a prophet.
Jerusalem was overflowing with visitors, many from other areas where Jesus had taught and healed. Therefore, there probably weren’t too many there who were not familiar with Him. An uprising of the people would have brought the wrath of the Romans down upon the religious leaders. Commentators have estimated the crowds at 250,000 to 3,000,000. We don’t know how many were actually gathered in Jerusalem at this time, but there was enough to cause the religious leaders to wait until all visitors had gone home before they attempted to rid themselves of Jesus. Thus, apparently the plan of the religious leaders was to find some way to kill Jesus after everyone had gone home and things had returned to normal. I would suppose that they would find some nefarious character whom they could bribe with money to attack and kill Jesus on some dark night when no one was around. However, that wasn’t God’s plan. There was a nefarious character who offered his services to identify Jesus after lies were told about Him so that He could be arrested, tried in a kangaroo court, and executed.
To be continued next time.